What is an SEO Proposal Template and Why Do You Need One?

An SEO proposal template is a document that provides structure and content you can customize and use as a sales pitch to win new SEO clients. You can use this blueprint repeatedly and tailor it to each of your prospect’s needs.

Whether you’re an SEO freelancer or a marketing agency, winning customers and growing a client base can be difficult. Having a point of reference makes it easier.

Here are some reasons why you need a winning SEO proposal template.

  • It saves time spent on creating an SEO proposal from scratch for each client. You can simply customize the template for each client.
  • The terms & conditions section saves money you would have spent trying to draw up contracts with professional attorneys.
  • A good template helps you appear more professional, which helps create a good impression and build your credibility.
  • An SEO proposal template gives you a competitive edge, especially if it's well-crafted, professional, and aesthetically pleasing.
  • Using an SEO proposal template ensures uniformity as all your proposals will have a similar flow of text, structure, and visual appeal.

Streamline your client acquisition process by using a well-crafted SEO proposal template.


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Elements of a Good SEO Proposal

Your search engine optimization proposal template needs to show your customers that you’re the best person or agency to optimize their website and boost their search engine rankings.

This section lists items to include in your SEO proposal to highlight this goal.

1. An Attractive Cover Page

While it’s important to present an actionable SEO strategy on how you’ll boost your client’s rankings, it’s even better if they like what they’re looking at while they read all about it.

Here are items you can include in your cover.

  • Your brand logo and colors
  • Name of the person submitting the proposal
  • Client information and date submitted
  • A catchy tagline or heading
  • A professional-looking design

Use your SEO proposal cover to capture your prospect’s attention.

2. Introduction and Overview

In this section, you’ll introduce yourself to your customer and highlight why you’re a great fit for them. You can use this section of the proposal as a summarized pitch.

Here’s a list of everything you should include in your introduction.

  • What sets you apart from your competition
  • Your deliverables and the benefits that come with them
  • Your experience, including any previous clients, success stories, etc.
  • The team you’ll be working with and their qualifications

Be sure to keep this section of your SEO proposal brief, ideally, no more than one page.

3. A Pitch Detailing SEO Insights and Analytics

Use this section to share specific SEO insights and analytics from your prospect’s website. You should also include your SEO plan to help solve your prospect’s problems.

Here are actions you’ll need to take beforehand to optimize this section:

  • Understand your prospect’s target audience
  • Research and analyze their website
  • Understand their goals and identify their problems
  • Conduct an in-depth competitor analysis
  • Personalize the SEO proposal template for the prospect

A few insights you could highlight include keyword rankings, technical audits, etc. You can use our SEO proposal template and customize it to save time.

4. A Detailed “Services” Section

This section of an SEO proposal template deals with the tasks involved in an SEO campaign. Our SEO proposal template lists the services offered by SEO experts and you can choose the ones you want based on a project’s scope.

Some common SEO services include:

By the end of this section, your client should know exactly what to expect from you.

5. Campaign Goals and Deliverables

This section of the proposal helps you tie your SEO services to results that are related to your customer’s revenue. Don’t overpromise on things like ROI and organic leads and set realistic expectations.

Some items you can include in your deliverables are:

  • Regular performance analysis reports
  • The number of backlinks you’ll build in a certain period
  • Estimates for an increase in traffic
  • An estimate of the kind of ROI they can expect

Your prospect’s current website performance will serve as a good base for you to set campaign goals and deliverables.

6. Project Timelines

Your SEO proposal should tell your prospects when to expect the deliverables listed above. That will be based on their current website performance, the goals that need to be achieved, and the scope of your project.

Here’s why it’s important to include your timelines:

  • Helps your clients track your progress
  • Puts your clients at ease as they know what to expect
  • Reduces conflict due to mismatched expectations
  • Helps keep you on track and focus on your goals

Show the most significant timelines by breaking down the deliverables into milestones.

7. Social Proof Section

When choosing what to include in this section, focus on case studies of clients that had similar pain points as your prospect. This way, your solutions will sound relatable to them.

Some items you could include in the social proof section of your SEO proposal are:

  • A case study or success story
  • Customer testimonials
  • Reviews and ratings
  • Awards and accolades

If you have no previous work, certifications can help show your expertise.

8. Pricing Section

Make sure you remind your prospective clients that they’re making an investment and they’ll be getting some benefits in return. Your pricing should reflect this as well.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when customizing this section of our SEO proposal template:

  • Include all costs, e.g. SEO tools pricing, in your budget to avoid underpricing.
  • For more flexibility, provide clients with a few payment options to choose from.
  • Have a standard package, an affordable package, and a premium package.
  • You can also use other forms of pricing, such as billing hourly or per project.

Provide your clients with a quotation so they know how much they’ll be investing.

9. Call to Action or Next Steps

You’ll need to inform your clients of the next steps to take to get started with your services. That’s where this section comes in.

Here are some items to include in this section:

  • A compelling call to action prompt
  • Your contact information
  • Brief compelling copy
  • Next steps, such as a consultation call

A solid SEO proposal template will help you create winning proposals that help you win more clients. Our SEO proposal template is exactly what you need.


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What's Included in Our SEO Proposal Template

Here’s what you’ll find in our SEO proposal template:

  • A compelling introduction section including a placeholder introduction and overview you can customize.
  • A summary of key SEO services offered by experts and agencies. We’ll include an exhaustive list of services you can choose from.
  • Examples of some goals and deliverables that you can use to help your prospective clients track your progress.
  • A layout of other sections, like insights and analytics, implementation timelines, social proof, and pricing with placeholder text.

How to Use This SEO Proposal Template

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to make the most of our SEO proposal template.

  1. Get in touch with your potential clients first and pitch to them based on their requirements. If they’re interested, you can prepare a detailed proposal.
  2. You can then download our SEO proposal template from this page for free. This gives you the initial outline, making it easy for you to prepare a detailed pitch.
  3. Customize this SEO proposal template to fit each specific customer’s needs. Your insights and analytics sections need to be as specific as possible.
  4. Send your proposal to a prospect and wait for their response. If it takes a while before you have your response, it's always safe to send a quick follow-up email.

How to Customize This SEO Proposal Template for the Best Results

The one thing that is sure to set your SEO proposal apart is making sure it's tailor-made for each of your customers. This does not mean, however, that you have to come up with everything from scratch.

You still need an SEO proposal template. Here’s why.

Besides providing you with a structure to follow, it will also give you the inspiration you need to edit items for your clients.

The best part?

An SEO proposal template makes pitching easier, gives you a competitive edge, and you can use it as many times as you like.

Here are some tips to keep in mind while customizing your SEO proposal template to fit your customer needs.

  • Make sure you research your client’s industry, business, and competitors. This helps you come up with an effective SEO strategy for them.
  • Instead of including your Terms & Conditions with your proposal template, it’s best to send it over after your client comes on board.
  • Make your writing clear and simple. You’ll likely be approaching someone who doesn’t understand the SEO lingo, so avoid jargon to the extent possible.
  • Format your SEO proposal template to represent your brand’s image to boost your credibility. Make sure it’s professional looking and well-designed.
  • Always end your SEO proposal template with a powerful call to action. This is your final chance to convince a prospect to get in touch with you.


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FAQs

Q1. How do you pitch an SEO project?

A. When sending an SEO pitch, you’ll need to create an SEO proposal specific to each prospect. Here’s what you should include in your proposal:

  • A professionally-designed cover
  • An introduction to your company
  • A detailed services section
  • Your goals and deliverables for the client
  • The project implementation timelines
  • Social proof section with case studies, reviews, etc
  • Pricing section that shows various pricing plans
  • A call to action section that includes the next steps

Q2. What is an SEO proposal template?

A. An SEO proposal template provides a blueprint that helps your SEO agency build a sales pitch to win new clients. It contains an outline with relevant content and placeholder text that you can customize for each prospect.

Q3. What are SEO deliverables?

A. Your SEO deliverables should be quantifiable results that you will deliver to a client within a specified period. These may include:

  • Content-related metrics like increased organic traffic and click-through rates
  • Link-building and backlink analysis deliverables like increased domain rating
  • Technical SEO deliverables like reduced broken links and 404 errors

Q4. What are the 4 main components of SEO?

A. Here are the four main areas every SEO expert should focus on:

  • Technical SEO: This deals with aspects that make it easy for search engines to crawl and index a website. It includes things like mobile friendliness, website speed, and content structure.
  • Content: Your content should be relevant and useful to your target audience, while also being SEO-friendly. It deals with things like duplicate or thin content, keyword optimization, etc.
  • On-site SEO: This refers to how well you optimize your webpage content and HTML. It includes things like site UX design, meta tags, meta descriptions, etc.
  • Off-site SEO: This involves things you do outside your website to improve its SEO performance. This mostly involves building high-quality backlinks using a variety of link-building strategies.

Q5. What key performance indicators should be included in an SEO proposal?

A. This depends on what’s most significant to your client. For instance, they may be looking to increase their traffic, website speed, rank for specific keywords, and so on.

From your initial research and requirement-gathering session, you should be able to identify KPIs that are most important to them.

For instance, if the client wants to rank for certain keywords, you can set your KPIs around content and track the content rankings over time.

Save Time and Cost Pitching to Your SEO Prospects

Are you ready to simplify your pitching process with a proposal that gives you a competitive edge? Download our free SEO proposal template to create a winning proposal every single time.